WAR POEMS 

AND OTHER VERSES 



R. E. VERNEDE 



I'l 




GopightN" J ?AiD_. 

COFiTlIGHT DEPOSIT. 



WAR POEMS 
R. E. VERNIEDE 



WAR POEMS 

AND OTHER VERSES 



BY 
R. E. VERNEDE 



WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY 

EDMUND GOSSE, C. B. 




NEW ^USr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



o-V^ 



^7.^' 
•^V" 



COPYRIGHT, 1920 
BY GEORGE. H. DORAN COMPANY 



\ 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©CI.AG01075 
•^f-'/ 7/920 



INTRODUCTION 

Too much can never be said in praise of the 
generous beauty of the gesture with which the 
youngest generation of Englishmen, just emerging 
on the golden threshold of life, have greeted the 
sacrifice of their hopes and ours. It has filled our 
historj'' with new and magnificent figures which will 
excite the enthusiasm and awaken the gratitude of 
our race for centuries to come. But while we 
admire this miraculous courage of the very youthful 
paladins of the war, something should still be 
reserved for the praise of those who had been 
brought face to face with the illusions of peace- 
time and who had, if we may say so, got into the 
habit of not being soldiers, but who yet, at the call 
of duty, sprang to the height of their disinterested 
patriotism. The poet whose verses we collect to- 
day was one of those who might well believe that 
their age absolved them from an active part in the 
profession of arms. He was, indeed, above the 
limit then set upon military service when the 
declaration of war disturbed him among his books 
and his flowers. Nothing in his past life had 
prepared him for such an activity. He was, as he 
said himself, " a dreamer," yet when the call to 
national duty came, he suddenly awoke, as a sleeper 
under the trumpet, to the utmost activity of enter- 

[v] 



INTRODUCTION 

prise. This is a case of the class of heroism which 
is most easily ignored, and which it is yet stupid 
and ungrateful of us to undervalue. Here we are 
invited to contemplate an aspect of the higher 
energy, even in the martial order^ which is not 
included among the " roses and myrtles of sweet 
two and twenty." 

Vernede's attitude towards the war is worthy 
of particular notice, because the nature of his oc- 
cupations and tastes had led him to his fortieth 
year without any predilection for military matters 
and without any leaning to what are called " Jingo " 
views. But when once the problem of the attack 
of Germany on the democracy of the world was 
patent to him, he did not hesitate for a moment. 
He accepted, completely and finally, the situation. 
Nor did he ever doubt the righteousness of the 
cause of the Allies, nor hesitate in his conviction 
that it must be conducted to victory with full resolu- 
tion. A few weeks before his death he wrote, in 
terms of scrupulous courtesy, to a " pacificist " who 
had asked leave to include " England to the Sea " 
in an anthology designed to exclude verses " which 
might contribute to a continuation of ill-feeling 
between the various nations." To this visionary, 
Vernede replied: — 

" Not for generations to come will there be any 

need to fan the embers against a people whose 

rulers have found logic in brutality and have urged 

their own necessities as an excuse for oppression. 

[vi] 



INTRODUCTION 

I do not think there is much hatred out here [in 
France] among our fighting men, but there will be 
memories among those who have seen what Kultur 
has inflicted on their comrades. I believe that if 
we had been fighting against men less filled with 
this logic of devilry, the mere horrors of modern 
war would have brought about a peace. Whatever 
historians or statesmen may make of it, we are 
fighting against the spirit that exults in such 
horrors." 

Robert Ernest Vernede was born in London 
on the 4th of June, 1875. He was of French 
extraction, representing the younger branch of a 
Southern family, the Vernede de Corneillans, who 
were driven from their estates in 1685 by the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The family 
dropped the " de Corneillan," and settled in Java, 
whence the poet's grandfather, Henri Vernede, pro- 
ceeded in the early part of last century, marrying 
an Englishwoman and becoming a British citizen. 
Robert Louis Stevenson mentions the ancestral 
castle of the Vernedes in his Travels with a Donl-ey. 
The family coat of arms, for those interested in 
these things, is an orange-tree on a golden field 
with a raven clutching at an orange that falls from 
the tree. Essentially English in sentiment, the 
English branch of the Vernedes has never ceased 
to pride itself on its pure French ancestry. 

After passing through St. Paul's School, R. E. 
Vernede went to Oxford, where he took a classical 

[vii] 



INTRODUCTION 

exhibition at St. John's College. He left Oxford in 
1898, and four years later he married Miss Carol 
Howard Fry, who survives him, and he settled down 
to a quiet country life at Standon in Hertford- 
shire. He occupied his abundant leisure in read- 
ing and writing, with a continual increase of ambi- 
tion to succeed. He published several novels, The 
Pursuit of Mr. Faviel, in 1905, Meriel of the Moors, 
in 1906; he visited Bengal in the company of his 
wife, and produced on his return An Ignorant in 
India, which has received high commendation. 
Success came slowly to him, but he was beginning 
to be recognised as a writer of solid promise when 
the outbreak of war transfigured his whole vision 
of life. 

It has been seen that the temperament and 
habits of Vernede had not in any way prepared 
him for fighting, and that yet, when the crisis 
came, he faced it at once. Though his years were 
mature, he was one of the earliest to dedicate 
himself without reserve to the service of the State, 
and to prepare to be a soldier. He had playfully 
complained that life was " humdrum " ; it suddenly 
became perilous and splendid. One who knew him 
well describes the way in which Vernede faced the 
new conditions, — " with the airman's far-away 
vision " ; he took " his fine headlong plunge to 
inspire us on our creep to death." In more 
prosaic language, at the beginning of September, 
1914, he enlisted as a private in a Public Schools 
[viii] 



INTRODUCTION 

Battalion, the IQth Royal Fusiliers, although he 
was so much above the highest limit for enlistment; 
and he received a commission in the Rifle Brigade 
early in 19^5. Before going to France, he had 
six months' commissioned service in the 5th Bat- 
talion of the same regiment, in the Isle of Sheppey. 
In France he was attached to the 3rd Battalion 
of the Rifle Brigade, one of the four Regular 
battalions of that regiment. 

Vernede's earliest experience of actual warfare 
was made in the trenches on the evening of Friday, 
January 7th, 1916. From that time, until his 
death fourteen months later, he was constantly in 
the thick of the fighting, save for a short time at 
the end of 1 91 6 when he was at home, wounded. 
He was with the infantry the whole time, resisting 
all suggestion of transference to more comfortable 
billets. He started in the ill-famed Salient. One 
of his first turns of duty in the trenches was taken 
during a prolonged and very violent bombardment 
of our lines; on coming out, the battalion received 
the thanks of the General Officer Commanding 
the Division. At the end of March the battalion 
was moved slightly south to the neighborhood of 
Ploegsteert Wood. In the early autumn it went 
further south again to take part in the battle of 
the Somme. During this fighting the captain 
commanding Vernede's company " went sick " for 
a short time, and Vernede was put in temporary 
command. He was so acting when a shrapnel 

[ix] 



INTRODUCTION 

wound in the thigh, on September Ist^, 191 6, sent 
him home to England. 

After a quick recovery at Oxford and in his own 
Hertfordshire home, and a short time of light duty 
in Sheppey — having absolutely refused to let a 
friend in the War Office try to find him even 
temporary work there, for fear it might impede his 
return — he went back to the front in the last 
days of 191 6. The battalion he joined, though of 
the Rifle Brigade, was not the one he had left: 
I am told that rarely happens. This was a service 
battalion, and in actual length of experience, apart 
from its quality, Vernede had probably the ad- 
vantage of most of his brother officers; but the 
comjnands had all been lately filled up, so he 
became merely the newest-joined subaltern. He 
was disappointed, being full of ideas which thus 
had no outlet, but accepted the arrangement as 
natural and unavoidable, and his captain has tes- 
tified to the unselfish loyalty and modesty which 
made it possible for others to do the same. 

He was back again in very much the same region 
in which he had been before his wound. Later, 
he saw, and was deeply moved by, the ravages 
committed by the Germans in their retreat. On 
Easter Day he wrote as usual to his wife, and spoke 
of the summer at last coming on, and that perhaps 
the war would end this year and he would soon see 
his home again. Early the next morning, the 9th 
April, 1917, he was leading his platoon in an 



INTRODUCTION 

attack on Havrincourt Wood, when he was mortally 
wounded and died the same day. 

The circumstances of his death repeat the story 
of a thousand such events in this prodigious war. 
Vernede was in charge of his platoon on the ad- 
vance, and was in front with a couple of his men 
when they suddenly came upon a concealed enemy 
machine gun. He was hit, and it was immediately 
seen that the wound was serious. His men carried 
him back alive to the aid station, but he died upon 
the further journey. He was buried in the French 
cemetery at Lechelle. His friend Captain F. E. 
Spurling put up a cross and planted around it a 
large bowl of daffodil bulbs which had been the 
joy of the poet when they flowered in the com-pany 
mess. They now, in their long sleep, watch over 
his rest. 

He greatly endeared himself to those by whose 
side he worked and fought. From a sheaf of 
private tributes from his fellow-soldiers I am per- 
mitted to quote one or two passages. Capt. G. 
Tatham says: 

" We served together in the same company from 
November 15th [1915] to last May, and we were 
a very happy party, as happy, at least, as it is 
possible to be in such circumstances. That we 
were so was in no small measure due to Vernede. 
He was a delightful companion and an excellent 
man to have in a battalion, — always cool and col- 
lected in the trenches, and always ready to lighten 

[xi] 



INTRODUCTION 

the dull monotony of billets with his quiet sense 
of humour. I now remember, sadly, that we used 
to accuse him of making notes for a future book 
in which all the weaknesses of his brother officers 
were to stand revealed ! " 

The late Capt. Andrew Buxton speaks of 
Vernede's " extraordinary bravery, over and over 
again undertaking and carrying through the most 
' unhealthy ' bits of work with all his thought for 
the men he was with and none for himself. He 
loved the N.C.O.s, and whenever any misfortune 
happened to one of his men, it was manifest that 
Vernede felt it intensely. Our time together was 
the most splendid imaginable, and I shall always 
look back on it with recollections that can never 
be forgotten." 

Vernede's closest friend, Mr. F. G. Salter, to 
whom I am indebted for much of the preceding 
information, gives me the following impression of 
him: — 

" In physical appearance Vernede was of rather 
more than average height, dark, with olive com- 
plexion; his face very regular and oval. He was 
strikingly good-looking, and his movements the 
most graceful of any creature's I have seen. He 
was a good skater, swimmer, and lawn-tennis 
player, and could walk enormous distances, when 
he chose. He never seemed to change at all from 
what he was like at Oxford. 

" His manner was quiet and reserved, or what 

[lii] 



INTRODUCTION 

might have seemed reserved to people first meeting 
him. Underneath this lay a keen observation of 
human nature, in all kinds and classes, and a 
humour which on occasion could be sarcastic. Any- 
thing pretentious or pompous was a sure target: 
a lesser condemnation was reserved for conduct 
which was not perfectly natural and easy. Except 
among intimates, he would often sit silent while 
others talked, and then, unexpectedly, say some- 
thing from an unwonted angle which lit up the 
whole question. He was entirely without affecta- 
tion, and certainly not disposed to put the artist on 
a pedestal above ordinary men. Every form of life 
interested him: he had the solidest stand on his 
mother earth. His temper was quite impossible 
to ruffle : I don't think in all these years I have ever 
once known him put out or moody. It is not 
surprising that he became popular with the young 
officers among whom he was thrown, and with his 
men, especially when the latter were in any sort 
of trouble. 

" To his friends he gave a generous and never- 
failing sympathy. They have lost the best man 
they have known. 

" His hatred of war was intense, and positive. 
He hated the cruelty it inflicts, and denied it as a 
test of efficiency, but his feeling went beyond that: 
he loved ardently the things which war destroys, 
the good human life of fellowship and adventure, 
the kindliness between man and man, the * thousand 

[xiii] 



INTRODUCTION 

labours under the sun.' To him it was a clear-cut 
issue of right and wrong when Germany let loose 
this evil upon Europe. Neither did he feel any 
hesitation as to his own duty. The greatness of 
England had always been the background of his 
thought: now he — ' dreamer/ as he calls himself — 
could serve her. He was a poor man, and enlist- 
ment meant for him the immediate cutting off of 
the greater part of his and his wife's livelihood; 
it meant too, of course, subordination, as a private, 
to all sorts of stupid duties and persons. But 
he at once enlisted, and only took a commission 
when it had become clear that that was the greater 
need. He was not at all indifferent to death. He 
loved life, with a solid, English love; he loved 
his garden, his art, his friends; above all, he loved 
the wife who for all the years since their betrothal 
had been the inspirer and encourager of everything 
he did, and who was so in this decision also, and to 
the end. He very greatly desired to come back 
alive after the war. But it seemed to him that such 
a desire was, for the present, simply irrelevant." 

Found among his papers, after his death, were 
the opening lines of an unfinished poem; he had 
noted it as one intended to be included in a 
collection he was contemplating, but if ever finished, 
the completion remained in his head alone. The 
lines are as follows: 

I seek new suns : I will not die ; 

Earth hath not shown me half her store, 
[xiv] 



INTRODUCTION 

From an eloquent tribute written by another 
former school-fellow and friend^ Mr. G. K. 
Chesterton, on receiving the news of Vernede's 
death, I quote a confirmatory passage: — 

" He always remained, even in face and figure, 
almost startingly young. There went with this the 
paradox of a considerable maturity of mind, even 
in boyhood ; a maturity so tranquil and, as it were, 
so solitary as to be the very opposite of priggish- 
ness. He had a curious intellectual independence; 
I remember him maintaining in our little debating 
club, that Shakespeare was overrated; not in the 
least impudently or with any foreshadowing of a 
Shavian pose, but rather like a conscientious student 
with a piece of Greek of which he could not make 
sense. He was too good a man of letters not to 
have learnt better afterwards; but the thing had 
a touch of intangible isolation that surprised the 
gregarious mind of boyhood. He had in every- 
thing, even in his very appearance, something that 
can only be called distinction ; something that might 
be called, in the finer sense, race. This was per- 
haps the only thing about him, except his name 
and his critical temper, that suggested something 
French. I remember his passing a polished and 
almost Meredithian epigram to me in class: it was, 
I regret to say, an unfriendly reflection on the 
French master, and even on the French nation in 
his person; but I remember thinking, even at the 
time, that it was rather a French thing to do. 

[xv] 



INTRODUCTION 

There was a certain noble contradiction in his life 
and death that there was also in his very bearing 
and bodily habit. No man could look more lazy 
and no man was more active, even physically active. 
He would move as swiftly as a leopard from some- 
thing like sleep to something too unexpected to be 
called gymnastics. It was so that he passed from 
the English country life he loved so much, with its 
gardening and dreaming, to an ambush and a 
German gun. In the lines called * Before the 
Assault,' perhaps the finest of his poems, he showed 
how clear a vision he carried with him of the 
meaning of all this agony and the mystery of his 
own death. No printed controversy or political 
eloquence could put more logically, let alone more 
poetically, the higher pacifism which is now resolute 
to dry up at the fountain-head the bitter waters of 
the dynastic wars than the four lines that run: — 

* Then to our children there shall be no handing 
Of fates so vain, of passions so abhorr'd . . . 

But Peace . . . the Peace which passeth under- 
standing . . . 
Not in our time . . . but in their time, O Lord.* 

" The last phrase, which has the force of an 
epigram, has also the dignity of an epitaph; and 
its truth will remain." 

To this admirable judgment I can add Hothing, 
except to say that the great quality of Vernede's 
[xvi] 



INTRODUCTION 

war-poems seems to me to reside in that directness 
of which Mr. Chesterton speaks. He is filled by a 
consciousness of the fine plain issues of the struggle 
between darkness and light. Hence, his verses 
emphasise our love of England, our veneration for 
her past, our confidence in her future, our steady 
and determined purpose. Moreover, he insists on 
keeping sharp the blade of indignation, whose edge 
is for ever being rubbed down by sentimentality. 
Vernede indulges in no absurd diatribes or "hate- 
songs " ; but his poems and his letters show that 
personal acquaintance with the dreadful accidents 
of his new profession had convinced him of the 
necessities of the moment. They had convinced 
him, beyond all disproof, that the peculiar Teutonic 
effort, — exercised, for instance, as at Arras or in 
Belgium, — was, to put it plainly, infamous. To 
punish, and for the future to prevent, such wicked- 
ness as this was the object, and the entirely suf- 
ficient object, of the self-sacrifice which had 
brought the farmer from Canada and the shepherd 
from New Zealand, and incidentally had drawn 
Vernede himself from his Hertfordshire garden. 
No doubt it is the evidence of this directness in 
his verses which has given them their first 
popularity. 

Edmund Gosse. 
July, 1917. 



[xvii] 



CONTENTS 

Introduction. By Edmund Gosse, C. B. 

To C. H. V 23 

England and the Sea .... 24 

The Call 27 

The Indian Army 29 

Mene, Mene 32 

A Legend of the Fleet .... 33 

" The Sea is His " 35 

To the United States .... 37 

The Day ....... 38 

England Marching 40 

Christmas, 1914 42 

Beyond the Pale 43 

To Our Fallen 44 

To Canada 45 

The Little Army 47 

The Little Sergeant .... 49 

To F. G. S 51 

[xix] 



CONTENTS 

Before the Assault 52 

A Petition 55 

At Delville 56 

A Listening Post 58 

A Trench Ditty 59 

The Infantryman 61 

The Sergeant 62 



OTHER VERSES 




The July Garden 




65 


To a Prince's Princess 




69 


A Delirium 




71 


Friendship .... 




72 


An Apology 




73 


To AN English Sheep-Dog 




74 


To A Hippopotamus 




76 


The Kid and the Tanner 




77 



[XX] 



WAR POEMS 



WAR POEMS 



TO C. H. V. 

What shall I bring to you, wife of mine. 

When I come back from the war? 
A ribbon your dear brown hair to twine? 

A shawl from a Berlin store? 
Say, shall I choose you some Prussian hack 

When the Uhlans we o'erwhelm? 
Shall I bring you a Potsdam goblet back 

And the crest from a Prince's helm? 

Little you'd care what I laid at your feet, 

Ribbon or crest or shawl — 
What if I bring you nothing, sweet, 

Nor maybe come home at all? 
Ah, but you'll know. Brave Heart, you'll know 

Two things I'll have kept to send: 
Mine honour for which you bade me go 

And my love — my love to the end. 



[23] 



WAR POEMS 



ENGLAND TO THE SEA 

Hearken, O Mother, hearken to thy daughter! 

Fain would I tell thee what men tell to me. 
Saying that henceforth no more on any water 

Shall I be first or great or loved or free, 

But that these others — so the tale is spoken — 
Who have not known thee all these centuries 

By fire and sword shall yet turn England broken 
Back from thy breast and beaten from thy seas. 

Me — whom thou barest where thy waves should 
guard me, 
Me — whom thou suckled'st on thy milk of 
foam. 
Me — whom thy kisses shaped what while they 
marred me, 
To whom thy storms are sweet and ring of 
home. 

" Behold," they cry, " she is grown soft and 
strengthless. 
All her proud memories changed to fear and 
fret." 
Say, thou, who has watched through ages that are 
lengthless, 
Whom have I feared, and when did I forget .f* 
[24] 



WAR POEMS 

England to the Sea [continued] 

What sons of mine have shunned thy whorls and 
races ? 

Have I not reared for thee time and again 
And bid go forth to share thy fierce embraces 

Sea-ducks, sea-wolves, sea-rovers, sea-men? 

Names that thou knowest — great hearts that thou 

boldest. 

Rocking them^ rocking them in an endless 

wake — 

Captains the world can match not with its boldest, 

Hawke, Howard, Grenville, Frobisher, Drake? 

Nelson — the greatest of them all — the master 
Who swept across thee like a shooting star, 

And, while the Earth stood veiled before disaster, 
Caught Death and slew him — there — at Tra- 
falgar ? 

Mother, they knew me then as thou didst know me ; 

Then I cried. Peace, and every flag was furled: 
But I am old, it seems, and they would show me 

That never more my peace shall bind the world. 

Wherefore, O Sea, I, standing thus before thee, 

Stretch forth my hands unto thy surge and say: 
When they come forth who seek this empire o'er 
thee. 
And I go forth to meet them — on that day 

[25] 



WAR POEMS 

England to the Sea [continued] 

God grant to us the old Armada weather, 

The winds that rip, the heavens that stoop and 
lour — 
Not till the Sea and England sink together. 

Shall they be masters ! Let them boast that 
hour! 
August, 191'i. 



[26] 



WAR POEMS 



THE CALL 

LaDj with the merry smile and the eyes 

Quick as a hawk's and clear as the day, 
You, who have counted the game the prize, 

Here is the game of games to play. 

Never a goal — the captains say — 
Matches the one that's needed now: 

Put the old blazer and cap away — 
England's colours await your brow. 

Man, with the square-set jaws and chin. 

Always, it seems, you have moved to your end 

Sure of yourself, intent to win 

Fame and wealth and the power to bend — 
All that you've made you're called to spend. 

All that you've sought you're asked to miss — 
What's ambition compared with this 

That a man lay down his life for his friend.'* 

Dreamer, oft in your glancing mind 

Brave with drinking the faerie brew, 
You have smitten the ogres blind 

When the fair Princess cried out to you. 

Dreamer, what if your dreams are true? 
Yonder's a bayonet, magical, since 

Him whom is strikes, the blade sinks through — 
Take it and strike for England, Prince! 

[27] 



WAR POEMS 

The Call [continued] 

Friend with the face so hard and worn, 

The Devil and you have sometime met, 
And now you curse the day you were born 

And want one boom of God — to forget. 

Ah, but I know, and yet — and yet — 
I think, out there in the shrapnel spray. 

You shall stand up and not regret 
The life that gave so splendid a day. 

Lover of ease, you've lolled and forgot 

All the things that you meant to right; 

Life has been soft for you, has it not? 

What offer does England make to-night.^ 
This — to toil and to march and to fight 

As never you've dreamed since your life began; 
This — to carry the steel-swept height, 

This — to know that you've played the man ! 

Brothers, brothers, the time is short. 

Nor soon again shall it so betide 
That a man may pass from the common sort 

Sudden and stand by the heroes' side. 

Are there some that being named yet bide? 
Hark once more to the clarion call — 

Sounded by him who deathless died — 
" This day England expects you all." 

August, 1914. 
[28] 



POEMS 



THE INDIAN ARMY 

Into the West they are marching! This is their 

longed-for day 
When that which England gave them they may at 

last repay; 
When for the faith she dealt them, peasants and 

priests and lords, 
When for the love they bear her^ they shall 

unsheathe their swords ! 

^len of the plains and hill-men, men born to warrior 

roles. 
Tall men of matchless ardour, small men with 

mighty souls, 
Rulers alike and subjects: splendid the roll-call 

rings : 
Rajahs and Maharajahs, Kings and the sons of 

Kings, 

Bikanir, Patiala, Ratlam and Kishangarh, 
Jodhpur, who rides the leopard down, Sachin and 

Cooch-Behar, 
From lands where skies are molten and suns strike 

down and parch. 
Out of the East they're marching, into the West 

they march. 

[29] 



WAR POEMS 

The Indian Army [continued] 

Oh little nimble Gurkhas, who've won a hundred 

fights. 
Oh Sikhs — the Sikhs who failed not upon the 

Dargai heights, 
Rajputs, against whose valour once in a younger 

world 
Ruthless, unceasing, vainly, the Mogul's hosts were 

hurled, 

Grey are our Western daybreaks and grey our 

Western skies 
And very cold the night-watch unbroke by jackals' 

cries ; 
Hard too will be the waiting — you do not love to 

wait? 
Aye, but the charge with bayonets — they'll sound it 

soon or late ! 

And when that charge is sounded, who'll heed grey 

skies and cold? 
Not you, Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurkhas, if to one thought 

you hold, 
If as you cross the open, if as the foe you near, 
If as you leap the trenches, this thought is very 

clear : 

These foes, they are not sahibs: they break the 

word they plight^ 
On babes their blades are whetted, dead women 

know their might, 
[30] 



WAR POEMS 

The Indian Army [continued] 

Their Princes are as sweepers whom none may 

touch or trust, 
Their gods they have forgotten; their honour 

trails the dust; 
All that they had of izzat is trodden under 

heel — 
Into their hearts, my brothers, drive home, 

drive home the steel! 

August, 1914. 



[31] 



WAR POEMS 



MENE, MENE 

In that green land behind you 

The well-loved homesteads stand 
Quiet as when you left them 

To spoil a little land. 
And stil] your busy housewives 

Sit knitting unafraid 
And still your children play as once 

The Flemish children played. 

In that green land behind you 

Whence you went forth to kill 
Your maids await their lovers. 

With hope their bosoms thrill. 
Oh lips too sweet almost to kiss, 

Oh eyes grown bright in vain — 
So waited many a Flemish maid 

Whom none shall kiss again. 

In that green land behind you. 

Heard you a bugle call.^^ 
See you in dreams a writing form 

On every homestead wall.^ 
What is yon cloud that grows and grows ? 

The Cossacks ride that way — 
Pray that their hearts be not as yours- 

If Gods be left you, pray! 
[32] 



WAR POEMS 



A LEGEND OF THE FLEET 

Since Nelson went to glory 

A hundred years ago 
(No man can hear the story 

But still it makes him glow), 
There's lots of old wiseacres. 

Longshoremen and headshakers 
Who say, ** We have none like htm — 

His like we'll never know ! " 

And maybe they speak rightly, 

For God Himself, you'd say, 
Would scarce start making lightly 

Another piece of clay 
Filled with his high devotions. 

His brain, that raced the oceans. 
His heart of fire and swiftness 

That won Trafalgar Day 

Yet on the other hand, sirs. 

There's some folks that declare — 
Strange stuff to tell on land, sirs. 

But sailor men — they'll swear — 
When Nelson went to glory. 

His heart — for that's their story — 
Afire he flung it to the Fleet, 

And still it's blazing there ! 

[33] 



WAR POEMS 

A Legend of the Fleet [continued] 

So when our grim, grey cruisers 

Nose out the skulking foe, 
And, beggars not being choosers, 

Their guns begin to crow, 
Though Nelson's gone to glory 

'Twill be the same old story — 
His heart, his heart will lead us. 

And them that doubt will know. 



[34] 



WAR POEMS 



" THE SEA IS HIS " 

The Sea is His: He made it, 

Black gulf and sunlit shoal 
From barriered bight to where the long 
Leagues of Atlantic roll: 
Small strait and ceaseless ocean 
He bade each one to be: 
The Sea is His : He made it — 
And England keeps it free. 

By pain and stress and striving 

Beyond the nations' ken, 
By vigils stern when others slept, 

By many lives of men; 
Through nights of storm, through dawnings 

Blacker than midnights be — 
This Sea that God created, 

England has kept it free. 

Count me the splendid captains 

Who sailed with courage high 
To chart the perilous ways unknown — 

Tell me where these men lie ! 
To light a path for ships to come 

They moored at Dead Man's quay; 
The Sea is God's — He made it. 

And these men made it free. 

[35] 



WAR POEMS 

The Sea Is His " [continued] 

Oh little land of England, 

Oh Mother of hearts too brave, 
Men say this trust shall pass from thee 

Who guardest Nelson's grave. 
Aye, but these braggarts yet shall learn 

Who'd hold the world in fee, 
The Sea is God's — and England 

England shall keep it free. 



[36] 



WAR POEMS 



TO THE UNITED STATES 

Traitors have carried the word about 

That your hearts are cold with the doubt that 
kills. 

Fools! As though you could sink to doubt; 

You — whom the name of freedom thrills ! 

They fear lest we plead with you by our blood 

To throb with England in this great fight, 

Caring no whit if the cause be good, 

Crying — " It's England's, account it right." 

Nay but that call would be vain indeed; 

Not thus do brothers to brothers speak. 
We shall not plead with you — let them plead, 

Whose heel is set on the necks of the weak 

Let them plead who have piled the dead 
League after league in that little land, 

Whose hands with the blood of babes are red. 
Red — while they'd grasp you by the hand. 

Let them plead, if for shame they dare. 

Whose honour is broke and their oaths 
forsworn — 

We shall know by the blood we share 

The answer you cannot speak for scorn. 

September 191^' 

[37] 



WAR POEMS 



THE DAY 

How shall it break — ^this dawn beyond forgetting? 

Out of grey skies shall just the same rose red 
Signal a day like that which ere its setting 

Gave us the seas to hold — and Nelson dead? 

Then, even as now, strife filled the earth's four 
quarters. 
And Might seemed Right and God was chal- 
lenged ; 
Then even as now upon the dim blue waters 

The Fleet kept watch — the Fleet that Nelson 
led. 

Dead is the Admiral; all the ships he won with 
Are scrapped-^f orgotten ; and the doubters 
say 
Though he still lived, his skill is passed and done 
with 
And none may tell the outcome of this day. 

Since from high Heaven itself Death may come 
sailing 
Suddenly, and from waters smooth and clear 
Sharper than from a gun's mouth, Hell starts 
hailing, 
And ere the foe be seen, the doom is near. 
[38] 



WAR POEMS 

The Day [continued] 

Aye, but remember ye when doubts come creeping 
That not his seacraft only Nelson left — 

Things nobler far he gave his men in keeping 
That should avail them though all else were 
reft— 

Things that Time cannot fashion and unfashion 
The fearless faith that love of freedom 
gives. . . . 
The fire, the inextinguishable passion, 

The will to die ... so only England 
lives. . . . 

Watch an ye will and pray — no prayer forgetting — 

For the brave hearts on yon dim waters 

rocked ; 

But fear not for the end of that sun-setting — 

The fire burns on — faith wins- — God is not 

mocked. 



[39] 



WAR POEMS 



ENGLAND MARCHING 

Winter — it's winter, Little Greatest Country, 
Black clouds keep piling on a bitter sky 

And the winds are screaming up from the cruel 
northline. 
Cold winds — cold hearts — winter is nigh. 

Other Peoples, great ones, Little Greatest Country, 
Marking all the storm-signs and the tyrants 
waxing strong, 
Take fear to council and sound for a retiring. 

Sink on their knees and whimper " Lord, how 
long? " 

You have never halted. Little Greatest Country, 
Though the foe ran ravening and all heav'n 
was gray, 
Though cowards noisily twittered of disaster. 

Leaders hung back that should have shown the 
way. 

On through the Darkness, Little Greatest Country, 

You have kept marching the men that you bore — 

Seemed their drums muffled, their trumpets were 

they silent? — 

Ah, but the foot-beats — Hear their ceaseless 

roar! 
[40] 



WAR POEMS 

England Marching [continued] 

Little Greatest Country, never yet went army 
Poor and so valiant, crushed and so free, 

Through deadlier night, disdaining the false cap- 
tains, 
Marching — marching — to Spring and Victory 

December, 1914 



[41] 



WAR POEMS 



CHRISTMAS, 1914 

Let us forget at this sad Christmastide 

All but the Babe who in his manger lay — 
God's Son who came that peace might reign 
alway 

And love be Lord. Though Him they crucified. 

Aye but He died not vainly. Cruelty died 

All down the ages^ and the Babe held sway 
In true men's hearts^ so that the stronger they, 

So much the more they crushed their strength and 
pride. 

Until a race that had forgot the Christ 

Arose^ saying, " Behold we are mighty men, 
As once of old let Might be Right again "... 

Oh, Babe, hath not Thy life, They death sufficed? 
Let us forget . . . nay let us rather wake 
And strike them down for Christ's and all 
babes' sake. 



[42] 



WAR POEMS 



BEYOND THE PALE 

(After reading the French evidence of the German 
atrocities.) 

As men who, in some hideous ju-ju place, 
Having found a naked ape with brutish tread 
Whom once they knew, before his reason fled, 
Decent and sane, a white man of their race, 
Will close their eyes in horror for a space — 
Then for sheer pity's sake, with no word said, 
Since no word may avail, will strike him dead 
And strive thereafter to forget his face : 
So with these ravening brutes that once were men 
A loathing world has held awhile its hand 
Unable to believe such things could be. 
Now, lest such baseness should be seen again. 
Let it in mercy flame across their land 
And sweep them to oblivion utterly 



[43] 



WAR POEMS 



TO OUR FALLEN 

Ye sleepers, who will sing you? 

We can but give our tears — 
Ye dead men^ who shall bring you 

Fame in the coming years ? 
Brave souls . . . but who remembers 
The flame that fired your embers? . 
Deep^ deep the sleep that holds you 

Who one time had no peers. 

Yet maybe Fame's but seeming 

And praise you'd set aside, 
Content to go on dreaming, 

Yea, happy to have died 
If of all things you prayed for — 
All things your valour paid for — 
One prayer is not forgotten. 
One purchase not denied. 

But God grants your dear England 
A strength that shall not cease 
Till she have won for all the Earth 

From ruthless men release. 
And made supreme upon her 
Mercy and Truth and Honour — 
Is this the thing you died for? 

Oh, Brothers, sleep in peace! 

December, 1914. 
[44] 



WAR POEMS 



TO CANADA 

Canada^ Canada, is not thy face most fair? 

Is there a land men know fairer than thee? 
Where is heaven half so vast? Where blows a 
lovelier air ? 

What are thy sons doing here o'er the sea? 

Have they forgot thy great hills and thy crystal 
clear 
Streams and deep woods and rich fields that 
they come? 
Are not their women loved ? Are not their children 
dear? 
Why do they march at the roll of the drum? 

Chill are the Belgian dunes^ clammy the night 
wind's breath, 
Always the livid mists from the meres creep; 
Who takes the roads of France marches alongside 
death — 
Are thy sons weary to try the last sleep ? 

Ah^ but thou knowest well, Canada, Canada, 

Sweet's every inch of thee, dear's every call ; 
Came but a cry from thee, every man's heart would 
stir . . . 
Only thine honour is dearest of all . . . 

[45] 



WAR POEMS 

To Canada [continued] 

And they have sworn^ thy sons, when thou art 

mightier yet^ 

No man shall point at thee, none shall dare say, 

" When, in the war of worlds, Cruelty and Justice 

met. 

Men of the maple hung back from the fray." 

So where the bugles call, there where the thin lines 
reel, 
Far from the land where their homes and 
hearts be, 
Stalwart and terrible, into the hail of steel, 
Canada, lo, they are marching for thee! 



[46] 



WAR POEMS 



THE LITTLE ARMY 

It^s true that hordes of British ne'er by tyrants' 

wills were hurled. 
Thicker than any locust swarm, to devastate the 

world ; 
But when those tyrants' legions passed, or painfully 

withdrew, 
One little Army still marched — it did at Waterloo 

No British Attila is found upon our scroll of fame — 
A thing few Englishmen regret — we never liked 

the name — 
But where, in some Walhalla hall, the great dead 

Captains meet, 
It's odds if Wellington stands down or Marlborough 

lacks a seat. 



Why would they? Small their armies were maybe, 

but none would call 
The battles they fought little ones, the victories 

they won small. 
Seeing that, ere they left the field, whate'er their 

toll might be, 
Kjngs had gone down and Emperors given up their 

empery. 

[47] 



WAR POEMS 

The Little Army [continued] 

Nay, take a map and count the spots where this 

small force made shift — 
Blenheim, the Douro, Qiiatre Bras, Alma, Quebec, 

Rorke's Drift; 
Mark that long road they trudged, adown the 

endless Afghan nights. 
See where, at a sick hero's word, they climbed the 

Abraham's Heights. 

Let others count their men by hordes ! We count 

them one by one — 
And many a warrior doffed his shoes before John 

Nicholson ; 
And many a slave bowed down his head and wept 

to know his doom — 
When Gordon stood and faced the pack that roared 

into Khartoum . . . 

Oh War-lord of the Western Huns — that Army of 

Sir John's — 
Your legions know it, do they not? They drove it 

back from Mons — 
'Twas small enough . . . too small perhaps . . . 

the British line is thin . . . 
It won't seem quite so little when it's marching 

through Berlin. 

1915. 
[48] 



WAR POEMS 



THE LITTLE SERGEANT 

(Sergeant , The Rifle Brigade.) 

He was one of the Bugler lads 

Born in the Army and bred also, 
And they gave him the stripes that had been his 
dad's 

For knowing what soldiers ought to know. 
And then you'd see him swanky and small 

Drilling grown men of twice his span, 
Dressing them down and telling 'em all 

That the British Army teaches a man. 

Lef-right-lef — how he'd make them run — 

All for their good as he let them see . , . 
" It's the way the Army has always done, 

Don't argy the point," he'd say, " with me." 
Sometimes they groused, but mostly they laughed — 

For there wasn't a job but he bore the brunt. 
And when the time came, there was never a draft 

Smarter than his when he went to the Front. 

Somewhere in France on a night of drench . . . 

When their guns had pounded the line to hell 
The Germans rushed what had been a trench 

And the Sergeant's men and the Sergeant fell. 

[49] 



WAR POEMS 

The Little Sergeant [continued] 

Light in some Boche I'm sure he'd let 

Before they could count him as reached full- 
stop: 

And if there was breath in him^ then I'll bet 

He told 'em why England would come out top. 

Swankj^ and small and full of guts — 

I wonder_, now that he's out of the fight^ 
Down what dark alleys his small ghost struts 

Giving his men " Lef-right — lef-right ". 
There where the darkening shadows fall 

I think I can hear him chanting slow — 
" The British Army's the best of all, 

Don't argy the point — I ought to know." 



[50] 



WAR POEMS 



TO F. G. S. 

(" Seriously wounded/') 

Peaks that you dreamed of, hills your heart has 
climbed on. 
Never your feet shall climb, your eyes shall 
see: 
All your life long you must tread lowly places, 
Limping for England, well — so let it be. 

We know your heart's too high for any grudging, 
More than she asked, you gladly gave to her: 

What tho' it's streets you'll tramp instead of snow- 
fields. 
You'll be the cheeriest, as you always were. 

Yes, and you'll shoulder all our packs — we know 
you — 
And none will guess you're wearied night or 
day — 
Yes, you'll lift lots of lame dogs over fences. 

Who might have lifted you, for that's your way. 

All your life long — no matter — so you've chosen. 

Pity you.^ Never — that were waste indeed — 
Who up hills higher than the Alps you loved so 

All your life long will point the way and lead. 

[511 



WAR POEMS 



BEFORE THE ASSAULT 

If thro' this roar o' the guns one prayer may 
reach Thee, 
Lord of all Life, whose mercies never sleep. 
Not in our time, not now, Lord, we beseech Thee 
To grant us peace. The sword has bit too 
deep. 

We may not rest. We hear the wail of mothers 

Mourning the sons who fill some najneless 

grave : 

Past us, in dreams, the ghosts march of our brothers 

Who were most valiant . . . whom we could 

not save 

We may not rest. What though our eyes be holden. 
In sleep we see dear eyes yet wet with tears. 

And locks that once were, oh, so fair and golden, 
Grown grey in hours more pitiless than years. 

We see all fair things fouled — homes love's hands 
builded 

Shattered to dust beside their withered vines. 
Shattered the towers that once Thy sunsets gilded. 

And Christ struck yet again within His shrines 

[52] 



WAR POEMS 

Before the Assault [continued] 

Over them hangs the dusk of death, beside 
them 
The dead lie countless — and the foe laughs 
still ; 
Yv^e may not rest, while those cruel mouths deride 
them. 
We, who were proud, yet could not work Thy 
will. 

We have failed — we have been more weak than 
these betrayers — 
In strength or in faith we have failed; our 
pride was vain. 
How can we rest, who have not slain the slayers.'' 
What peace for us, who have seen Thy children 
slain ? 

Hark, the roar grows . . . the thunders re- 
awaken — 
We ask one thing, Lord, only one thing 
now: 
Hearts high as theirs, who went to death un- 
shaken, 
Courage like theirs to make and keep their 
vow. 
To stay not till these hosts whom mercies harden. 

Who know no glory save of sword and fire. 
Find in our fire the splendour of Thy pardon, 
Meet from our steel the mercy they desire. . . 

[63] 



WAR POEMS 

Before the Assault [continued] 

Then to our children there shall be no handing 

Of fates so vain — of passions so abhorr'd . . . 
But Peace . . . the Peace which passeth under- 
standing . . . 
Not in our time . . . but in their time. O 
Lord. 

December, I916. 



[54] 



WAR POEMS 



A PETITION 



All that a man might ask, thou hast given me, 
England^ 
Birth-right and happy childhood's long heart's- 



ease. 



And love whose range is deep beyond all sounding 
And wider than all seas. 

A heart to front the world and find God in it, 
Eyes blind enow, but not too blind to see 

The lovely things behind the dross and darkness 
And lovelier things to be. 

And friends whose loyalty time nor death shall 
weaken. 
And quenchless hope and laughter's golden 
store ; 
All that a man might ask thou has given me, 
England, 
Yet grant thou one thing more: 

That now when envious foes would spoil thy 
splendour^ 
Unversed in arms, a dreamer such as I 
May in thy ranks be deemed not all unworthy, 
England, for thee to die 

[55] 



WAR POEMS 



AT DELVILLE 

At Delville I lost three Sergeants — 

And never within my ken 
Had one of them taken thought for his life 

Or cover for aught but his men. 

Not for two years of fighting 

Through that devilish strain and noise; 
Yet one of them called out as he died — 

" I've been so ambitious, boys "... 

And I thought to myself, " Ambitious ! " 
Did he mean that he longed for power? 

But I knew that he'd never thought of himself 
Save in his dying hour. 

And one left a note for his mother, 

Saying he gladly died 
For England, and wished no better thing . . , 

How she must weep with pride. 

And one with never a word fell, 

Talking's the one thing he'd shirk. 

But I never knew him other than keen 
For things like danger and work. 

Those Sergeants I lost at Delville 

. On a night that was cruel and black, 
They gave their lives for England's sake, 
They will never come back. 
[56] 



WAR POEMS 

At Delville [continued] 

What of the hundreds in whose hearts 
Thoughts no less splendid burn? . 

I wonder what England will do for them 
If ever they return? 



[67] 



WAR POEMS 



A LISTENING POST 

The sun's a red ball in the oak 

And all the grass is grey with dew, 

Awhile ago a blackbird spoke — 

He didn't know the world's askew. 

And yonder rifleman and I 

Wait here behind the misty trees 

To shoot the first man that goes by. 
Our rifles ready on our knees. 

How could he know that if we fail 

The world may lie in chains for years 

And England be a bygone tale 

And right be wrong, and laughter tears ? 

Strange that this bird sits there and sings 
While we must only sit and plan — 

Who are so much the higher things — 
The murder of our fellow man. . . . 

But maybe God will cause to be — 

Who brought forth sweetness from the strong- 
Out of our discords harmony 

Sweeter than that bird's song. 

[58] 



WAR POEMS 



A TRENCH DITTY 

When the war is over an' the fun is wearin' thin 
Of brightly doin' goosesteps down the alleys of 
Berlin, 

I'll find some German ulan, twist 'is 'elmet off 

'is 'ead. 
An' throw 'im my puttees (what's left) to wear 

around instead. 

And I'll march into the station and address the 

bookin'-clerk: 
" Ein billet for old England, look sharp, you 

frightful Turk. 

" For I've had enough of Boches and I've shot a 

handsome few — 
Look sharp, you ruddy Strafer, or I may be shootin' 

you." 

'E'll find a ticket fast enough, an' fust-class I'll 

go back 
With my feet upon the cushions an' my rifle in 

the rack. 

An' when I gets to England, why, I'll marry some 

sweet maid 
An' tell 'er 'ow we crossed the Rhine an' what the 

Prussians paid. 

[69] 



WAR POEMS 

A Trench Ditty [continued] 

Every night, for luck, 111 drink afore I go to bed 
A pint from out that 'elmet that once squeezed the 
ulan's 'ead. 

And on the Kaiser's birthday I will send, to keep 

'im keen, 
A card with " God strafe England " on and " Wot 

price St. Heleen ? " 

When the war is over, that's the kind o' course 

I'll steer — 
But it ain't quite over yet, my lad, so 'cave that 

sandbag 'ere! 



[60] 



WAR POEMS 



THE INFANTRYMAN 

I WISH I 'ad entered the Navy — 

It's damp when the decks are a- wash ; 

But the 'appy A.B.^, unlike you and me, 
Ain't always knee-deep in the slosh. 

I wish I 'ad signed as a bird-man — 
'Taint nice to fall outer the sky; 

But 'e 'as got the fun of observing a 'Un 
Afore he gets nicked in the eye. 

I wish I 'ad gone for the cavalry — 

There's yourself and a 'orse to keep neat; 

But it must save some trouble it your 'orse does the 
double 
When you're launched on a ruddy retreat. 

I wish I 'ad tried anti-aircraft — 

It's 'ard to get off your armchair 

When a Zeppelin blows by; but I'd 'ave a good 
try 
To drill a thick 'ole in the air. 

I wish I 'ad joined the Staff Collidge — 
They work at the juice of a pace 
Drorin' maps — reg'lar rippers — fetchin' generals 
their slippers; 
But you can use yer brains at the base. 

[61]. 



WAR POEMS 

The Infantryman [continued] 

I wish I 'ad applied for munitions — 

You should see me do 'alf- weekly spells; 

No unions I'd worry by bein' in a hurry — 
No — I'd get the V.C. making shells. 

But I've been and entered the infantry^ 

And I lives like a eel in the slosh — 

" Dam fool ! " did you say^ lad? Well, any ole way, 
lad, 
It's we that gets quits with the Boche. 



[62] 



WAR POEMS 



THE SERGEANT 

The Sergeant 'as 'is uses — 

I used to doubt of it — 
'E did not like the way I washed, 

'Is 'ead seemed bulged a bit. 
My arms drill seemed to 'urt 'im, 

'E'd swear and close 'is eyes; 
An' when I 'ad no time to shave 

'E would not sympathise. 

At 'ome in good old England 

When dealin' with recruits 
'E seemed to 'ide his better self^— 

If they 'ad dirty boots. 
But in this trench a-sitting 

All crouched upon my joints 
I do not mind admitting 

The Sergeant 'as 'is points. 

'E's just been round explainin' 

That jumping up to see 
If shells is going to burst your way 

Is waste of energy. 
Shells, though you can't believe it. 

Aren't always aimed at you. 
But snipers if they see your 'ead 

Will put a bullet through. 

[63] 



WAR POEMS 

The Sergeant [continued] 

His words about the Boches 

Is also comforting — 
'E says as good a shot as me 

Could do a dozen in.. 
An' if it came to baynits, 

I'd easy stick a score 
The way I fight — I never knew 

'E thought me smart before. 

" An' anyway/' 'e says, " Lad, 

Mind this, we're goin* to win: 
It's no use thinkin' gloomy thoughts 

Whatever fix you're in. 
Suppose we did get outed — 

England would not forget 
And where's the man that is a man 

That would not die for that?' 

August, 1916. 



[64J 



OTHER VERSES 



WAR POEMS 



THE JULY GARDEN 

It^s July in my garden; and steel-blue are the 
globe thistles 
And French grey the willows that bow to every 
breeze ; 
And deep in every currant bush a robber blackbird 
whistles 
" I'm picking, I'm picking, I'm picking these ! " 

So off I go to rout them, and find instead I'm 
gazing 
At clusters of delphiniums — the seed was 
small and brown, 
But these are spurs that fell from heaven and 
caught the most amazing 
Colours of the welkin's own as they came 
hurtling down. 

And then some roses catch my eye, or maybe some 
Sweet Williams 
Or pink and white and purple peals of Canter- 
bury bells. 
Or pencilled violas that peep between the three- 
leaved trilliums 
Or red-hot pokers all aglow or poppies that 
cast spells — 

[67] 



WAR POEMS 

The July Garden [continued] 

And while I stare at each in turn I quite forget or 
pardon 
The blackbirds — and the blackguards — that 
keep robbing me of pie; 
For what do such things matter when I have so 
fair a garden, 
And what is half so lovely as my garden in 
July? 

Standon, 

July, 1914. 



[68] 



TO A PRINCE'S PRINCESS 

What sorer fate shall one win in the world 

Than to be lowered from Love's first esti- 
mate, 

To see her heart grow cold, her brows elate 
Questioning, and lips with scorn a little curled; 
Then on her cheeks the blushing banners furled 

That told of Love's alliance, and — too late — 

Th' irrevocable guest-gifts alternate 
Into the ebb-tide of oblivion hurled? 

Not wittingly, O Sweet Heart, did I seem 
Larger than my real self; if it were so. 
Only in thy light of splendour did I glow 

So splendid as to earn thy dear esteem; 
And if the dream is gone and I must go. 

Remember that I loved — and did not dream. 

Who is your like of all that Grimm portrayed? 

Is Lovely Locks a lady of his pen? 

Or would you play at Princess Scorn-the- 
men. 
Who, to an hateful goblin's power betrayed, 
Was rescued by a Prince's magic blade? 

Or may be you are Beauty, as I deemed then 

When first you came into my wondering ken. 
Beauty, a tennis-playing English maid? 

[69] 



WAR POEMS 

To a Prince's Princess [continued] 

I care not which you be, for all, at last, 
Were won to look upon the proper man. 

Beauty and Lovely Locks, the unsurpassed. 
And the fair Scorner, sick of Caliban: 

Aye, loved so much at last that none grew paler 

To find their Prince was, may be, but a tailor. 

O happy times, when lovers' only need 

Was fairy godmother or magic sword. 

Or tablecloth that spread a sumptuous board 
Whene'er the Prince expressed a wish to feed; 
When waiters were invisible and unfee'd, 

When ocean was no wider than a ford 
To seven-league boots, and mangy scrijDS could 
breed 

Of gold an unimaginable horde. 
What Prince to-day can carve a dragon's shank 

And in a flying trunk without a fear 
, Elope with the dear lady of his heart ? 

Now at a ledger he must ply his part 
And wearily, in some suburban bank, 

Weigh Love against a hundred pounds a year. 



im 



OTHER VERSES 



A DELIRIUM 

" So this young life is gone from us — God send 
Peace to his soul " — (Amen!) — " and we that 

grieve 
Some little consolation may conceive 

In dwelling on the days that death made end, 

How stainless " (Seventy-times seven did I offend), 
" How full of splendid promise, should he live, 
(Kind lips that lie, what promise did I give?) 

How well-beloved!" — (Thank God, I had a 
friend). 

I on the wings of some tumultuous night 

Adown unceasing silences, along 
Wastes where wide-eyed deliriums sink and swell. 

By crazy shores and seas that circle wrong. 
Bodiless, mindless, without voice or sight. 

Speed to the maze and madnesses of Hell. 



[71] 



WAR POEMS 



FRIENDSHIP 

I HAD a friend, and so we went together, 
Merry and armed for every kind of weather; 
Far was the road, but tired no man could find us, 
We laughed at the hills, so soon they dropped 
behind us. 

I had a friend — yet not long had we started 

When we fell out, and in our anger parted: 

The clouds dipped down; the mountains rose to 

screen him. 
Oh, passers-by, long years I have not seen him ! 

Far is the road, and always it is lonely. 
I am a man, and therefore march I . . . only 
It lures me not — the goal for which we started; 
I seek my friend — my friend from whom I parted. 



[72] 



OTHER VERSES 



AN APOLOGY 

Listen ! I also have a lady fair, 

Whose praise in many a passionate rhyme 
should ring, 

Were I not weak, for all love's licensing, 
The wonder of her beauty to declare; 
And while your lady's loveliness you blare, 

I tremble lest my notes fail on the string. 

Lest men that hear me, question, wondering, 
" Was't beauty that inspired so poor an air?" 

Yet when all songs are sung, all praises told. 
And you demand with your last proudest tone 

Men's verdict — is the prize for his or mine? — 
I shall but show my Love, saying " Behold, 

What song shall match her ? " And all men 
shall own 
Your words less weak, my Lady more divine. 



[73] 



WAR POEMS 



TO AN ENGLISH SHEEP-DOG 

Old Dog^ what times we had, you, she and I, 
Since first you came and with your trustful air 
Blundered into her lap — a valiant, shy. 
Small tub-shaped woolly bear. 

What lovely days we had; how fast they flew 
In hill-side ramblings, gallopings by the sea: 
You grew too large for laps but never grew 
Too large for loyalty. 

We have known friends who living passed away — 
Your faith no man could turn, no passion kill; 
Even when Death called, you would scarce obey 
Until you knew our will. 

Out in the fields I bore you in my arms, 
Dear Thick-coat, on your grave the grasses spring; 
But He that sees no sparrow meets with harms 
Hath your soul's shepherding. 

And will that King who knows all hearts and ways 
Kennel you where the winds blow long and fair 
That you who ever loathed the warm still days 
May snuff an upland air.f' 

[74] 



OTHER VERSES 

To an English Sheep-Dog [continued] 

And will He let you scamper o'er the meads 
Where His hills close their everlasting ranks, 
And show you pools that mirror gray-green reeds 
To cool your heaving flanks ? 

And will He feel you with good things at even^ 
Bringing the bowl with His own hands maybe? 
x\nd will you^ hunting in your dreams in Heaven, 
Dream that you hunt with me? 

Yes, you will not forget; and when we come, 
What time or by what gate we may not tell. 
Hastening to meet our friend that men called dumb 
Across the ditch of Hell, 

You'll hear — you first of all — oh, strong and fleet. 
How you will dash, an arrow to the mark! 
Lord, but there'll be deaf angels when we meet — 
And you leap up and bark! 



[75] 



WAR POEMS 



TO A HIPPOPOTAMUS 

Lines written in dejection on seeing a River-horse. 

A FRAGMENT 

Beast, that waddlest in the ooze 
Where Mid-Afric rivers lose 
Sight of the sheer hills they left 
'In silvery leaps from cleft to cleft, 
But not yet with gathering roll 
Have espied their final goal — 
That great sea which we and they 
Must be mingled with some day — 
Beast, that, in this midway slime, 
Passest a primaeval time. 
Say, what fancy did give birth 
To thy super-monstrous girth? 
Did the Devil think it well 
To hoist thee up one day from hell. 
So that the crystal streams might be 
Churned with thy vast turbidity? 
Or did he think — To stay a flood 
This nightmare horse is very good. 
Seeing that with his gulf-like mouth 
He could drink ocean to a drouth ? 

[76] 



OTHER VERSES 



THE KID AND THE TANNER 

A WHITE kid on a village green, 
Imagining itself unseen. 
Sported in such a graceful manner 
It caught th' attention of a Tanner. 

The Tanner watched, and mused, and said: 
To see you prancing on your head 
Some foolish folk, oh milk-white kid, 
Would very gladly pay a quid. 

To me it seems a sort of shame 
That one so young should — for a game — 
Without a thought of what is meet. 
Render himself too tough to eat." 

The kid replied: " But, Mr. Tanner, 
It's lovely playing in this manner; 
Why should I then, my young life spoiling. 
Cease — to become more fit for boiling.'' " 

The Tanner frowned: though fairly mild. 
Such heedless language made him wild — 
Or, as he would himself allege. 
Set all his moral self on edge." 

[77] 



WAR POEMS 

The Kid and the Tanner [continued] 

" Each kid," he cried, " by Nature's laws, 
And Man's_, subserves some Higher Cause- 
Not merely its own goatish pleasure — 
And ought to learn to be a treasure. 

" Now you'll be useless for the pot. 
And far too gambolsome — God wot — 
To draw along at nursemaid's pace 
A goat-cart in a watering-place." 

The kid believing that this view 
From one so serious must be true, 
First wept, then said if it knew how 
'Twould be a better goat from now. 

The Tanner mused — he wished to aid 
A helpless creature that had strayed; 
He mused for quite a lengthy spell — 
He wished to aid himself as well. 

" Really I hardly know what you," 
He said at last, " are fit to do. 
Stay — in my tannery at least 
Your skin could be preserved, poor beast, 

" Nay, more, if you will be advised 
You can become immortalized, 
And though from you 'twill have to sever 
Your skin may gambol on for ever." 
[78] 



OTHER VERSES 

The Kid and the Tanner [continued] 

" Dear Mr. Tanner," straight replied 
The wondering kid, much gratified, 

" I find it very hard, believe me, 
To think my ears do not deceive me. 

" For how, dear Mr. Tanner, how 
Can that same skin I'm wearing now — 
Shorn from my frame so lithe and taper — 
Continue, as you say, to caper ? " 

The Tanner smiled — all business men 
Enjoy a whimsy now and then. 
And chiefly when th' indulging of it 
May cause a gain — not loss — of profit. 

The Tanner smiled and cleared his throat. 
And said on quite a merry note: 
" Know, kid, a nymph as gay as you 
Requires a shoe, or rather two. 

" Your skin, once tanned and heeled and soled, 
And lacquered to the tint of gold. 
Will just suffice to make those slippers — 
Size Number 4, to fit her flippers. 

" Thus, then, when you are dead and gone. 
Still will a kid go capering on. 
Or rather, 'neath her skirts with glide 
Two twinkling kidlets side by side." 

[79] 



WAR POEMS 

The Kid and the Tanner [continued] 
The kid, persuaded in this manner, 
Gladly accompanied the Tanner, 
And entering his odorous portal 
With great despatch became immortal. 



Moral 

'Tis better, Kids, to frisk and frivol 
Than to take counsel of the Devil — 
Even though he has the business manner 
And staid appearance of a Tanner. 



The End 



[80] 



